Round-Snipe-Ham Lakes Loop

The realization that we are officially day-tripping weekend warriors has come and gone.  Our days of month-long forays into the bush departed with our jobs and limited vacation.  We embraced that reality by splitting our normal trips into shorter, long-weekend travels.  We've made due.  The truth is our life is lived in the woods.  Everyday our routine revolves around the wilderness life we always dreamt of.

Now it is Penelope's life.  Through our daily hikes into the forest, our leisurely afternoons swimming and hanging out around the fire on the beach, nights falling asleep to the low soulful howl of timber wolves, mornings awaking to finches at the bird feeder, and canoe tripping; Penelope is already living a unique experience growing up in the north woods.

A couple of nights ago we decided that it was time for her to sleep her first night in a tent.  We made camp.  Granted the tent was pitched on our property no more than shouting distance from her cradle it was a new experience nonetheless.  She went to sleep under a clear crisp diamond studded starry night and woke up to trembling aspen glittering in the soft morning breeze.  It was a great start to our weekend adventure.

Penelope's first camp: our backyard!

Happy baby in the morning!

Heading up the Gunflint Trail with the canoe atop the truck and gear in the bed is a great freeing feeling.  Just knowing that solitude and new sights in only a couple paddles and a portage away reinvigorates me.  Penelope contently watched the forest and lakes cruise by her window.  At the landing she quietly laid down on the blanket in front of her mother as we launched her on her first wilderness canoe trip.  A loon greeted us within a paddles length of the starboard bow and a bald eagle surveyed Round Lake as we crossed.  Penelope just stared up at shining sky.

Penelope, clearly enthusiastic, crossing into the wilderness for the first time.

Our first portage of a 140 rods (one rod is sixteen and a half feet long, 320 rods equals one mile) followed a small stream, crossed a couple of springs flowing out of a bedrock contact, around a small moose pond and to Missing Link Lake.  Penelope rode in the front pack like it was a stroll in the park at home.

After paddling the small scenic lake we carried another 180 rod portage over rock ledges and through black spruce bogs carpeted with sphagnum moss into the gorgeous Snipe Lake.  Keeling and prying our way around sheer rock faces we soon found ourselves over the short, cobbled portage and launching into narrow Cross Lake.  Powering over beaver dams we realized that we had found the rhythm that we had hoped for!  A rhythm when time is determined by j-strokes, wind speed, waves and the weight on our backs.  All the while Penelope shared in our adventure.

The "porpoises" of the North's sphagnum-rimmed muskegs; river otter playfully followed our canoe.

At Cross Lake we found pitcher plants.  These colorful carnivorous plants are found in bogs where the methane rich waters and acidic soils make conditions difficult for much else to survive.  These amazing plants attract unsuspecting insects with their color.  Their leaves that are cupped and when the insects land on them their slimy leaves trap them.  Slipping into the main body of the plant the prey is then dissolved by bacteria.

Hundreds of pitcher plants lined this lake.  All awaiting insects to be lured to their ill fate.

Now paddling north we shared the route with three river otter and a huge snapping turtle.  A tail wind aided the travels.  Before we knew it we were crossing Ham Lake.  The day almost complete we took advantage of a stiff breeze and easy landing to watch a Bald Eagle soar the thermals above us.

Prehistoric relics of the Jurassic; this snapping turtle was content enough on his warm rock to let us get to within a paddle's length away!

 We ended the paddle with a couple of simple carries over the iron orange weathered slate of the Rove Formation.  The portages snaked through old growth white and red pines that were spared by the Ham Lake fire that started nearby.  The final portages around mild rapids on Cross River led to a leasurily paddle to the landing which completed the adventure.  Penelope's first canoe trip was a success!